Risk management with weighted VaR

This article studies the optimal portfolio selection of expected utility‐maximizing investors who must also manage their market‐risk exposures. The risk is measured by a so‐called weighted value‐at‐risk (WVaR) risk measure, which is a generalization of both value‐at‐risk (VaR) and expected shortfall (ES). The feasibility, well‐posedness, and existence of the optimal solution are examined. We obtain the optimal solution (when it exists) and show how risk measures change asset allocation patterns. In particular, we characterize three classes of risk measures: the first class will lead to models that do not admit an optimal solution, the second class can give rise to endogenous portfolio insurance, and the third class, which includes VaR and ES, two popular regulatory risk measures, will allow economic agents to engage in “regulatory capital arbitrage,” incurring larger losses when losses occur.     

保险资金投资管理中的风险分散问题研究

组合投资是利用投资组合内各个风险资产之间的相关性来分散风险的,而均值—方差投资组合模型采用的相关性度量—相关系数无法准确地度量风险资产之间的相关性,这必将对组合投资的风险分散效果产生不利影响。本文提出,用理论性质更好的相关性度量来度量风险资产之间的相关性,并建立基于Kendallτ的投资组合模型。通过实证研究发现,在保险资金投资管理中,采用基于Kendallτ的投资组合模型能够取得比均值—方差投资组合模型更好的风险分散效果。     

Managing policy lapse risk in Sweden’s life insurance market between 1915 and 1947

Abstract

We examine the challenges that Swedish life insurers faced in managing the lapse risk of policies written on the lives of the industrial urban working class between 1915 and 1947. We observe that with the threat of State socialisation of insurance in the 1930s, industrial life insurers modified their business practices to better control policy lapses. Using firm-level data, we also analyse the effect of socio-economic changes, such as rising real wages, interest rate fluctuations and unemployment on life insurance policy lapses. Our results support contemporary tests of the emergency fund and interest rate explanations for the voluntary premature termination of life insurance policies.     

生命表更新对我国寿险产品保费影响的定量分析

从2006年起,我国寿险产品定价使用新的生命表,这将影响寿险产品保费计算的关键因素——死亡率。本文运用寿险精算理论,从定量角度分析了生命表更新对定期寿险、生存年金和两全保险等基本寿险产品保费的影响。研究结果表明,生命表更新后,定期寿险和两全保险的保费降低了,男性保费的变化幅度小于女性,而对于生存年金,结果恰好相反;保费的变化程度还取决于投保年龄、保险期限、利率和性别等因素。     

寿险营销人员知识素质结构与寿险业发展相关性研究

本文认为,寿险营销人员知识素质水平的高低直接影响着寿险公司的信誉和寿险市场的健康发展,它们之间成正相关关系.当前我国寿险营销人员知识水平普遍不高,对专业知识缺乏系统、深入的了解;综合能力不够,不能适应市场要求;职业素质良莠不齐,误导客户的现象时有发生;部分营销人员敬业、奉献精神不足,寿险营销队伍很不稳定.这些都已经严重影响到了我国寿险业的公信力和信誉度,影响到了寿险业的可持续发展.文章提出,为促进寿险业可持续发展,必须高度认识提高寿险营销人员知识水平和素质的必要性和迫切性;通过政府主管部门和寿险公司等多方面努力,多管齐下抓好寿险营销队伍建设;依托高等院校,培养高素质创新型、复合型寿险营销人才.     

CONSTANT PROPORTION PORTFOLIO INSURANCE IN THE PRESENCE OF JUMPS IN ASSET PRICES

Constant proportion portfolio insurance (CPPI) allows an investor to limit downside risk while retaining some upside potential by maintaining an exposure to risky assets equal to a constant multiple of the cushion , the difference between the current portfolio value and the guaranteed amount. Whereas in diffusion models with continuous trading, this strategy has no downside risk, in real markets this risk is nonnegligible and grows with the multiplier value. We study the behavior of CPPI strategies in models where the price of the underlying portfolio may experience downward jumps. Our framework leads to analytically tractable expressions for the probability of hitting the floor, the expected loss, and the distribution of losses. This allows to measure the gap risk but also leads to a criterion for adjusting the multiplier based on the investor's risk aversion. Finally, we study the problem of hedging the downside risk of a CPPI strategy using options. The results are applied to a jump-diffusion model with parameters estimated from returns series of various assets and indices.     

效用理论在保险决策中的应用

效用函数的凹凸性将风险态度进行了三类划分：风险中性型、风险厌恶型、风险喜好型。本文从效用理论出发研究了不同的风险态度决策人的不同的风险决策结果,讨论了效用理论在保险产品的定价中的应用,并根据不同的风险态度和不同的损失分布函数确定最优投保方式.     

ASSET ALLOCATION AND ANNUITY-PURCHASE STRATEGIES TO MINIMIZE THE PROBABILITY OF FINANCIAL RUIN

In this paper, we derive the optimal investment and annuitization strategies for a retiree whose objective is to minimize the probability of lifetime ruin, namely the probability that a fixed consumption strategy will lead to zero wealth while the individual is still alive. Recent papers in the insurance economics literature have examined utility-maximizing annuitization strategies. Others in the probability, finance, and risk management literature have derived shortfall-minimizing investment and hedging strategies given a limited amount of initial capital. This paper brings the two strands of research together. Our model pre-supposes a retiree who does not currently have sufficient wealth to purchase a life annuity that will yield her exogenously desired fixed consumption level. She seeks the asset allocation and annuitization strategy that will minimize the probability of lifetime ruin. We demonstrate that because of the binary nature of the investor's goal, she will not annuitize any of her wealth until she can fully cover her desired consumption with a life annuity. We derive a variational inequality that governs the ruin probability and the optimal strategies, and we demonstrate that the problem can be recast as a related optimal stopping problem which yields a free-boundary problem that is more tractable. We numerically calculate the ruin probability and optimal strategies and examine how they change as we vary the mortality assumption and parameters of the financial model. Moreover, for the special case of exponential future lifetime, we solve the (dual) problem explicitly. As a byproduct of our calculations, we are able to quantify the reduction in lifetime ruin probability that comes from being able to manage the investment portfolio dynamically and purchase annuities.     

中国保险公司资本结构的影响因素及调整速度——产险公司和寿险公司的比较

本文利用1998—2010年中国大陆地区财产保险公司和人寿保险公司的业务数据和财务数据,在部分调整模型的基础上,通过差分GMM方法对二者资本结构的影响因素进行实证研究。本文发现,中国产险公司和寿险公司的目标资本结构与公司规模、公司成熟度的关联显著为正,与产品分散化、地理分散化、产品收支间隔期的关联不显著,而再保险利用只对产险公司影响显著。平均而言,每一年度中国产险公司和寿险公司分别可以调整目标资本结构缺口的42.1%和28.5%。     

Robust XVA

We introduce an arbitrage‐free framework for robust valuation adjustments. An investor trades a credit default swap portfolio with a risky counterparty, and hedges credit risk by taking a position in defaultable bonds. The investor does not know the exact return rate of her counterparty's bond, but she knows it lies within an uncertainty interval. We derive both upper and lower bounds for the XVA process of the portfolio, and show that these bounds may be recovered as solutions of nonlinear ordinary differential equations. The presence of collateralization and closeout payoffs leads to important differences with respect to classical credit risk valuation. The value of the super‐replicating portfolio cannot be directly obtained by plugging one of the extremes of the uncertainty interval in the valuation equation, but rather depends on the relation between the XVA replicating portfolio and the closeout value throughout the life of the transaction. Our comparative statics analysis indicates that credit contagion has a nonlinear effect on the replication strategies and on the XVA.     

Network valuation in financial systems

We introduce a general model for the balance‐sheet consistent valuation of interbank claims within an interconnected financial system. Our model represents an extension of clearing models of interdependent liabilities to account for the presence of uncertainty on banks' external assets. At the same time, it also provides a natural extension of classic structural credit risk models to the case of an interconnected system. We characterize the existence and uniqueness of a valuation that maximizes individual and total equity values for all banks. We apply our model to the assessment of systemic risk and in particular for the case of stress testing. Further, we provide a fixed‐point algorithm to carry out the network valuation and the conditions for its convergence.     

保险公司工程保险风险——效益评价指标体系研究

由于工程项目保险具有保险金额大,风险高的特点,从保险公司的视角研究保险公司风险成本的构成,构建保险公司工程保险风险——效益评价的指标体系,通过对工程项目风险——效益评价,进行工程保险决策,使保险公司在面对复杂的工程保险市场时具有较强的抗风险能力,开发出满足客户需求的、定制的“个性化保单”去占领工程保险市场,以赢得竞争的优势。     

浅谈寿险公司所得税制度构建

我国目前尚未形成适应寿险商品特殊性的所得税制度,这与现行市场条件下我国寿险业的发展是不相适应的。基于此,本文从寿险商品交易长期性、储蓄性及投资性出发,分析了我国构建寿险公司所得税制度的必要性,并借鉴国际上比较流行的寿险所得税课征模式,提出我国寿险所得税制度构建的大体思路。     

诉讼财产保全责任保险承保风险分析及对策建议

诉讼财产保全责任保险是一种新型的责任保险,其承保风险也较一般责任保险有所不同,在心理风险、道德风险、逆选择风险、法律风险等方面表现出特殊性。保险公司应以立法机关完善法律法规为前提,以监管部门引导诉讼财产保全保险体系建设为方向,采取发展业务渠道、建设核保团队、积极参与另诉维权等具体措施,实现对诉讼财产保全责任保险的承保风险的有效管控。     

论我国寿险营销模式的创新

我国的寿险营销经历了从无到有并正经历从单一到多元化的变革 ,因此 ,有必要对我国现有寿险营销模式及其存在的问题进行剖析、对寿险营销未来的改革与发展趋势进行探讨 ,个性化、多元化营销方式借助科技手段营销模式创新 ,将成为寿险界的发展趋势     

Optimal close-to-home biases in asset allocation

This article studies optimal portfolio decisions with (long-term) liabilities for small open economy based investors, including the optimality of currency hedging (Walker (2008a). Chile is the home country of the representative investor, but results are likely to hold more generally. The problem is set up as in [Sharpe & Tint, 1990] and [Hoevenaars et al., 2007]. Hedging the liabilities and the consumption currency may imply optimal close-to-home biases, defined as overweighting asset classes which are highly correlated with local ones. The implementation challenges include: developing a methodology to estimate expected returns in local (real) currency; estimating the covariance matrix allowing for serial and crossed-serial correlations; and checking the results' robustness using a resampling method. The findings are: (i) portfolios always have optimal close-to-home biases, beyond the investment in local fixed income to hedge liabilities; (ii) currency hedging reduces investment in close-to-home asset classes, (iii) but has ambiguous effects on welfare — detected with the resampling method; (iv) currency hedged long-term US bonds are useful for hedging local interest rate risk; and (v) liabilities give access to high risk-return portfolios, not affecting otherwise the overall shape of the efficient regions. This article can be useful to investors based on small open economies, including pension funds, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds and Central Banks.     

RISK HORIZON AND REBALANCING HORIZON IN PORTFOLIO RISK MEASUREMENT

This paper analyzes portfolio risk and volatility in the presence of constraints on portfolio rebalancing frequency. This investigation is motivated by the incremental risk charge (IRC) introduced by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. In contrast to the standard market risk measure based on a 10‐day value‐at‐risk calculated at 99% confidence, the IRC considers more extreme losses and is measured over a 1‐year horizon. More importantly, whereas 10‐day VaR is ordinarily calculated with a portfolio’s holdings held fixed, the IRC assumes a portfolio is managed dynamically to a target level of risk, with constraints on rebalancing frequency. The IRC uses discrete rebalancing intervals (e.g., monthly or quarterly) as a rough measure of potential illiquidity in underlying assets. We analyze the effect of these rebalancing intervals on the portfolio’s profit and loss distribution over a risk‐measurement horizon. We derive limiting results, as the rebalancing frequency increases, for the difference between discretely and continuously rebalanced portfolios; we use these to approximate the loss distribution for the discretely rebalanced portfolio relative to the continuously rebalanced portfolio. Our analysis leads to explicit measures of the impact of discrete rebalancing under a simple model of asset dynamics.     

Ethical Challenges in the Two Main Segments of the Insurance Industry: Key Considerations in the Evolving Financial Services Marketplace

Based on the findings of several research studies of professionals in both the property-liability insurance industry and the life insurance industry, the paper makes and supports several important points. First, ethical challenges in the insurance industry involve not only a series of ethical dilemmas frequently faced by those working in the business, but also a variety of factors that hinder those working in the industry as they seek to resolve the ethical dilemmas encountered in the course of their work. Both of these two components of ethical challenges must be understood by those in the financial services industry who will deal with insurance operations in the future. Second, whereas the life insurance business and the property-liability insurance business have traditionally been viewed as being quite different from one another and still are in terms of operations and regulation, the research findings show that they are no longer very different in terms of the key ethical challenges faced by those working in the two segments of the industry. The paper shows how during the past decade the ethical challenges in the property-liability insurance industry have become quite similar to those in the more troubled life insurance industry.     

ON SURRENDER AND DEFAULT RISKS

This paper examines certain types of saving institutions or insurance companies that are subject to surrender and default risks, in a stochastic interest rate context. In the setting under study, investors are endowed with an option to surrender. The goal of the paper is to study how this option impacts the default risk of the issuing company and the value of the contracts it issues. Surrender risk has been extensively studied in arbitrated markets, using trees or least‐squares Monte Carlo methods for valuations, although practitioners often rely on econometric methods. We deal with surrender risk in a third way, assuming policyholders have sets of information and preferences that differ from those of financial market agents, but without relying on econometric methods. In particular, policyholders are supposed to be only partially rational (at least in the financial sense). This is done by modeling surrender risk through a Cox process correlated to the assets and interest rate dynamics. The paper provides formulas for the dynamics of the assets of the issuing firm (these dynamics drive the default time of the company), and for the valuation of liabilities and equity. A numerical illustration is provided.     

金融海啸对世界寿险业的风险警示

我国寿险业在这次金融危机中受到一定影响,但没有造成全局性、系统性风险。金融危机对我国寿险业来说是一个调整契机：业务结构调整应当突出寿险业作为提供风险管理和风险保障者安身立命的行业特性,引导行业首先要保持和发挥自身的行业特性,重回寿险业独立的核心价值定位;避免降息对利差损造成的风险;积极改变投资策略,减少资本市场风险带来的收益波动;加强监管,避免系统性风险。